Health activists censure government’s bird flu response

Government measures to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus are insufficient, according to independent Egyptian health experts. “Action in Egypt to tackle the problem has been confused and chaotic,” said Raouf Hamed of the National Organisation for Drug Control and Research. Moataz Billah Osman, researcher at the Arab Organisation for Human Rights, echoed this sentiment, noting: “Although international health crises are difficult to manage, the government should have done more during the period leading up to the arrival of the virus in Egypt.” Since the alarm was officially raised on 17 February, tens of thousands of birds have been culled by both breeders and health officials. On 20 February, the government ordered a massive cull of all domestically owned poultry after infected chickens were found in 12 governorates around the country. Activists, however, say that careless disposal of bird carcasses could serve to aggravate the situation. “Not only has my brother lost his main source of income as a chicken breeder,” said Umm Ragab, who lives in a poor Cairo district, “but he has disposed of the carcasses in the street, and no one has come to clean them up”. According to Hamed, such haphazard disposal methods represent a major health risk. “This is exactly how illnesses get passed on, with the poorer, less hygienic areas exposed to the greatest risk,” he noted. Dr Mohammed Khalifa, technical manager at the agriculture ministry’s National Laboratory for Quality Control and Poultry Production, insisted that adequate measures were being taken. If bird flu was suspected at a given location, Khalifa explained, the government would dispatch a medical team to investigate and take more samples. “If the results are positive, officials from the agriculture, environment and health ministries will take care of the hygienic disposal of the birds.” In an effort to support the poultry industry, which employs an estimated 2.5 million people, the government is also offering to buy chickens from poultry farmers en masse. “The government has promised to buy what’s available from producers and hygienically dispose of any infected birds,” said Khalifa. “The rest will be slaughtered and resold.” He went on to point out that the government was “treating the issue with full transparency”. Nevertheless, rights activists remain sceptical in light of the ongoing failure to provide compensation to survivors and families of victims of the Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 ship disaster of 3 February. “The issue of compensation remains unclear, as do many of the government’s measures to control the crisis,” said Osman. Umm Ragab, for example, said she could not get through to the government’s bird flu information hotline, despite numerous attempts. Activists and local media have also accused the government of covering up initial reports of bird infections. “I’ve confirmed reports that poultry breeders were finding dead chickens among their stock as long ago as late last month,” said Hamed. “It’s precisely this lack of transparency that makes me wonder whether human cases have been discovered but not reported.” A medical source in the southern governorate of Minya, meanwhile, said that two suspected human cases were being kept under surveillance, although this has not been confirmed by health authorities. “For now, all people living in proximity to the chickens who were thought to be infected have tested negative,” said health ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahine. Shahine added that the government was taking “all appropriate measures” to stem the spread of the disease: “We’re currently doing our best to prevent the further spread of the virus and to protect citizens from possible infection,” he said.